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REMARKS 



ON 



THE RELATION 



BETWEEN 



EDUCATION AND CRIME, 



IN A 



LETTER 



TO THE 



RIGHT REV. WILLIAM 

President of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating 



BY FRANCIS LIEBER, 

MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY. 




TO WHICH ARE ADDED, 



SOME OBSERVATIONS BY N. H. JULIUS, M. D. 

OF HAMBURG, 

A CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE SOCIETT. 



PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE BOCIITY 



v>. 



J PHILADELPHIA: 



1835 



REMARKS 



ON 



THE RELATION 



BETWEEN 



EDUCATION AND CRIME, 



IN A 



LETTER 



TO THE 



RIGHT REV. WILLIAM WHITE, D. D. 

President of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons. 



BY FRANCIS LIEBER, L. L. D. 

MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY. 



TO WHICH AHE ADDED, 

SOME OBSERVATIONS BY N. H. JULIUS, M. D. 

OF HAMBURG, 

A CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE SOCIETT. 

J. A, 



BLISEIED BYORDEROF THE SOCIETY. 



I PHILADELPHIA 



1835 



^ 



REMARKS 

ON THE 

RELATION BETWEEN EDUCATION AND CRIME. 

Right Reverend Sir, 

The office which you hold as the President of our Society, and the 
active interest which you have taken for a long series of years, in all 
matters connected with the improvement of prisons and punishment, 
as well as public instruction, have induced me to address to you the fol- 
lowing remarks on a subject of vital importance to society. I am well 
aware that they touch upon a few points only, of this vast and grave 
subject, and that even these few points have not been as fully discussed, 
as a thorough and systematic inquiry would demand; yet I feel assured 
that you will receive them with that interest, which we grant even to 
the weakest effort, if calculated to shed some light upon a great sub- 
ject, and with that indulgence, for which a sincere desire to add our 
mite to a good cause, may always hope at the hands of true wisdom and 
long experience. 

In the British House of Lords as well as Commons, it has been stated 
that education is far from causing a decrease of crime, and the United 
States have been adduced as instances of this pretended fact. In one 
case it has been asserted, that official information had been obtained 
from the city of New York, which would amply prove it. On the other 
hand, some remarks of Messrs. de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, con- 
tained in their work on the Penitentiary System in the United States, 
on the apparent increase of crime in the State of Connecticut, have 
been referred to, as equally confirming the statement, which, if true, 
would disappoint the promoters of public instruction, in one of their 
fondest hopes. 

It appeared to me that, though many individuals would be inclined 
to dismiss these assertions without further consideration, since long expe- 
rience has convinced them of a different result, it would nevertheless be 
desirable that a convincing statement to the contrary should be given 
to the public, both here and in Europe, if we are at all able to do so. 
The assertions arc serious; the consequences which their truth would 
involve, of an alarming character; the impression which they might 
produce, very obnoxious in an age, when, in many countries, greater 
efforts are making to establish general education, than at any previous 
period, and when, on the other hand, the results at which some of the 
most distinguished and acute statistical writers have arrived, apparently 
corroborate the above unfavorable remarks. I was in hopes that some 



writer, more fitted for the task, and more at leisure than myself, would 
offer his observations upon this subject, and have, therefore, delayed 
giving my views until now, though, in the mean time, I did not remain 
idle as to the collection of materials, should the task eventually fall 
upon me. As no one as yet has given, as far as I know, his views, I 
venture to lay mine before you, requesting you, however, at the same 
time, not to consider the following remarks as intended to form a treatise 
on the important question before us. A labor of this kind would require 
more leisure than I can possibly command. All I have proposed to my- 
self is, to offer some general views, which may present the various 
points, constituting the subject which occupies our attention, with 
greater clearness, and a few statistical facts of high authority to show, 
as I believe I shall be able to do, the fallacy of the cited statements.* 

The difference of opinion respecting the effect of education upon the 
decrease of crime, is owing, in my opinion, in no slight degree, to a vague- 
ness of expression, so common whenever a subject of great importance 
begins to attract general attention. Even to words, apparently of very 
simple import, a different meaning is attached, by different individuals; 
or the ideas which they are intended to convey, are indistinct. Thus, 
I doubt very much whether many writers connect a perfectly clear and 
definite idea with an expression so simple, as that of decrease or increase 
of crime. The terms, education, instruction, knowledge, and several 
others, are used still more vaguely, and not unfrequently, in utter con- 
fusion. In order, therefore, to proceed with any degree of clearness, it 
will be proper to discern between knowledge, instruction, education and 
civilization. 

By instruction, we understand the imparting of knowledge; but I may 
be permitted to use the term for brevity sake, in the subsequent lines, 
for public instruction, or the imparting of knowledge in schools; and, 
more especially, in schools which are established according to some ge- 
neral system, and strive to diffuse knowledge among those classes which 
are least able to procure instruction by private means. Education has 
a much more comprehensive meaning, and designates the cultivation of 
the moral, mental and physical faculties of the young ; it includes, there- 
fore, instruction. By civilization, I understand the cultivation of all our 
powers, and endowments, and whatever results from this cultivation, as 
well as the cultivation of all those ideas which have any connexion with 
man's existence, as a member of civil society, or as a social being in 
general, and the adorning of his mind. 

According to this definition, I take it for granted, that man was des- 
tined for civilization. If there be any who deny this position, who, per- 
haps, pretend with some writers of the' last century, that man is hap- 
piest and purest, in a state of absence of civilization, I do not consider 

* Some highly interesting facts relating to the subject in question, with reference 
to foreign nations, are contained in the late numbers of the Annals of Penitentiaries, 
&c, by Dr. N. H. Julius, a gentleman, whose praiseworthy zeal and great ability inthe 
promotion of sound prison discipline, and institutions of a charitable character, are well 
known to all who have occupied themselves with the improvement of prisons. He is 
now in this country, sent by the Prussian government, to inspect our penitentiaries, 
and was unanimously requested, at a meeting of our Society, to add a note to the pre- 
sent remarks, on the relation between education and crime in Prussia. 



this the place to refute their opinion. An inquiry of the kind would 
had us to a philosophical investigation into the first principles of human 
so< lety, ami the elements of the human mind itself. 

If man were not destined to remain for ever stationary in a savage 
state, or, which amounts to the same thing, to live for ever without so- 
. be w;b destined to move on from one generation to another, to ac- 
quire, to discover, and to add experience to experience. A medium be- 
tween the two states cannot be imagined. Man must either be inactive, 
or once the impetus given, he must move on from one change to another. 
His destiny is civilization, and civilization is his truly natural state, be- 
cause in it alone he developes that nature which God has given to his 
mind. Let us suppose, however, this were not the case ; nothing essential 
would be altered, with regard to the whole European race, since we find 
it already in this state of progress from knowledge to knowledge, from 
acquirement to acquirement, and from discovery to discovery; and surely 
there can be no person, who pretends to say, that a retrogade movement 
up to the first simplicity be possible! Even if we disagree as to the final 
effects of civilization, in regard to man's happiness or virtue; with us it 
would be now too late for any thing else but the progress toward farther 
perfection. 

An author of the last century, who has given to the public several 
treajtises of the soundest character, gravely discusses in one of his papers 
the question, whether it be wise to promote the improvement of roads, 
and internal communications of all kinds, and actually comes to the con- 
clusion, that it is wiser for a government not to make the roads too easy. 
As one of his reasons, he states that the same roads which serve for a 
brisk internal intercourse, will also serve the enemy, in times of war, 
as an easier means of conquest. Now, this seems to me, precisely a case 
in point. Even if all the objections against good and many roads had 
been founded, a ruler would, nevertheless, have acted very unwise ]y 
and in a way that must have become very injurious to his country, had 
he neglected to promote internal communication. Whatever may be 
the accidental or secondary results of civilization, it seems to me, that 
no choice is left any longer to the European race. 

The first question now, which offers itself in the course of our inquiry 
is, does civilization promote crime? 

That civilization itself, as defined above, cannot be said to promote 
crime, seems clear; yet I am not desirous of weighing words, and wil- 
lingly admit that an increased number of crimes will generally be con- 
nected, with a state of increased civilization, simply because civilization 
multiplies, with every advancing step, the opportunities for the appli- 
cation of man's activity, and therefore, the opportunities for its abuse. 
It multiplies the desires and wants of man^ which is in fact one of the 
most desirable effects of civilization; but along with them, it multiplies 
disappointment, and will always, with some individuals, create the desire 
of gratifying these wants by any means, whether honest or dishonest. 

A\ hen men live upon the simplest food which nature offers, without 
the assistance of human activity, and dress in a style of corresponding 
simplicity, very few wants, and consequently few disappointments — few 



desires, and consequently few wicked desires can exist.* The crimes 
which an Esquimaux can possibly commit, can be but few in number : on 
the other hand, what would have become of mankind without the art of 
writing? Each generation would have remained in insulated barbarity, 
and a gradual development of morals could hardly have taken place. 
Where would we be without a system of credit ? Nations never could 
have become united by commercial intercourse, commerce would have 
remained in its slow and confined incipient stage ; knowledge would not 
have extended far beyond the limited theatre of human activity, as we 
find it in antiquity. Yet, without the art of writing, and without the 
modern system of commercial credit, mankind would have been spared 
two of the most numerous classes of crime — fraud and forgery. We 
all know that private property forms one of the surest foundations and 
most indispensable elements of civilization: yet without private property 
we should be freed from a very great number of crimes now committed. 
No weed grows on a barren rock indeed, but no grain either. 

There are various other causes why the number of crimes is increased 
with advancing civilization. One of the most numerous divisions of 
crime, in all reports, to whatever nation of the European race they 
may relate, is Burglary; but burglary can be committed frequently in 
those countries only, the inhabitants of which feel comparatively secure. 
A castle of the middle ages could not be easily robbed; and a Turk 
hides his treasures under the ground, or carries them in his belt, and 
sleeps with them. Burglary, therefore, is perhaps not very frequent in 
that country, but should we be justified in concluding from this fact, 
that the Turks, as a people, are more moral or less prone to crime than 
ourselves X 

The mere absence of crime, therefore, is neither a proof of a state of 
morality — for it may originate from very inauspicious causes — nor is the 
increase of crime of itself a proof of increased degeneracy . 

If I have granted that civilization multiplies the opportunities of 
crime, (in a moral way, as, undoubtedly, it increases physically the 
variety of diseases, though not mortality,) it will be admitted on the 
other hand, that, generally speaking, a universal attention to public 
instruction is the result of a general progress of civilization, which sel- 
dom fails to cause, at the same time, two things: first, as I have already 
stated, multiplied opportunity for crime, and, secondly, an improved 
state of the administration of justice, as well as of the police which de- 
tects the deviations from the law. I believe it would be difficult to 
imagine a government which watches with great zeal over public in- 
struction, and promotes it throughout the country, without directing a 
proportionate attention to the other branches of administration. Thus 
it happens that very frequently the introduction of a general school 
system is accompanied by an increased number of convictions in the 
courts of justice; and observers of this bare fact, who do not penetrate 
into the true causes of this phenomenon, conclude from the frequent ap- 
pearing together of improved school systems, and an increased number 

* Among- others, Archbishop Whately, has treated of the supposed morality of 
uncivilized tribes, in his Introductory Lectures on Political Economy, (London, 1831,) 
with that calm and impartial reflection which pervades the whole work. 



of convictions, that one is the cause of the other, or that, at all events, 
tbe former ileus not effect a decrease of crime. But in order to ascer- 
tain the true effect of universal instruction, we must guard ourselves 
Bgmiori rash conclusions, and take for examples, countries of a large 
extent, in which universal instruction has heen established for a series 
Rich as Prussia, rather than those in which no thorough effect 
can as yet be expected, or which are so small that casual occurrences, 
entirely foreign to the amount of criminality in the community, may 
ntially disturb the usual proportion of crime and population. 

It is evident that education, as denned above, cannot possibly promote 
crime; except a man be so bold as to assert that man's nature is so 
thoroughly bad, that in whatever way it be cultivated, if cultivated at 
all, it shoots forth the germs of its seeds of corruption — a view which 
would be repugnant to our most sacred conceptions of the goodness as 
well as wisdom of our Creator. 

But the question is, whether universal instruction is conducive to a 
decrease of crime. What is meant by public instruction? I believe, if 
used without further designation, we understand, by the expressions of 
u universal education," or " public instruction," most frequently the 
universal instruction in the various elementary branches of knowledge, 
or, to speak with more precision, reading, writing, arithmetic, a fair 
knowledge of our vernacular tongue, geography, and some knowledge 
of history — together with the principles of religion and morality. 

That domestic education — the rearing of the young in sound morality, 
the fear of God, and with the all-important example of virtue in their pa- 
rents before their eyes — is of vital importance to every society, and can 
never be supplanted by any general school system, however wisely it 
may be contrived, appears to me so evident, that it is unnecessary 
to dwell upon this point. Suppose, however, domestic education in 
general, or with large classes, to be bad, and thus not only to continue 
from generation to generation, but, as there is nowhere a mental or 
moral standing still, to grow worse and worse, how shall we begin to 
correct so dangerous a state of things ? The school would naturally be 
one of the readiest means gradually to introduce a better one. If the 
moral domestic education be not bad, instruction is not less necessary. 
I do not treat here of the general necessity of the knowledge of reading 
and writing, which our religion makes as indispensable as our state of 
industry and politics, but merely of the effect of general instruction upon 
crime, or, in other words, its moral effect. 

Knowledge in itself is neither good nor bad; it has no moral character 
of its own, and in the translation of the work of Messrs. de Beaumont 
and Tocqueville, which I have already mentioned, I have said : " In this 
sense, knowledge is, in itself, in most cases, neither good nor bad; arith- 
metic will assist a defaulter, as much as an industrious man who works 
for his family, as a knife may serve the murderer, as well as him who 
cut3 a piece of bread with it for a crippled beggar ; just as the sun lends 
his light to crime as to virtue." But if we come to speak of public in- 
struction, knowledge does not retain so entirely an indifferent character. 

It has been often remarked, that instruction, without the careful cul- 
tivation of the heart and religious instruction, leads to moral mischief, 



8 

rather than to good effects. This is undoubtedly true, but in practice 
the remark applies more, I believe, to schools of a higher character 
than to what is called a general or popular school system. Times have 
existed, when the religious cultivation of the heart — I do not only speak 
of religious instruction — was greatly neglected in schools where the 
sciences were taught with peculiar success. But this disproportion does 
not so often exist in elementary schools, such as are established by a 
general school system, for all the classes in less favored situations. I 
believe there is hardly a school, even the meanest, in which the child 
does not receive some moral instruction, were it but in a secondary way. 
A teacher cannot help enforcing some moral rules, by way of keeping 
order in his school-room; nor can the lessons which the children have to 
read and to learn, remain without instilling some moral precepts into 
the mind, or disposing it better for the reception of moral and religious 
views. Secondly, there is in all knowledge, even the most indifferent 
as to moral effect, for instance arithmetic, a softening power, which ren- 
ders the mind more pliable ; and however inferior it may be in itself, it 
forms one more link Which connects the individual with the society in 
which he lives. But the more we can cultivate this feeling of our being 
linked to a society of moral beings and to a nation, which is not of to- 
day, and in which we have to perform our duties as everyone else, and 
the more we can prevent the future growth of a feeling of separation 
from society, or, with which, in fact, this feeling often ends in its na- 
tural progress, of opposition to the rest of society, the more We shall also 
prevent the various acts of selfishness, of absorbing egotism — of crime. 
It is for this reason, among others, that the instruction in our political 
duties ought to form a branch of instruction in all schools. Let us teach 
and convince every one that he forms an integrant part of the community, 
upon the faithful performance of whose duties its welfare partially de- 
pends, and we shall increase his self-esteem, and thereby afford him 
one of the best preservatives against crime. 

Thirdly, there are no individuals more exposed to crime, than the ig- 
norant, in a civilized community ; or, in other words, those individuals 
who are touched by the wants and desires of civilization, or by the ef- 
fects of general refinement, without being actually within the bosom of 
civilization. 

It is on this latter point, that I greatly rest my opinion of the neces- 
sity of universal education with the European race. Civilization exists 
with us ; we cannot stop it, even were we desirous of doing so ; and the 
outward effects of civilization without knowledge, is the greatest bane 
that can befall any class or individual. Ignorance without civilization 
is no peculiar source of crime ; ignorance with civilization, is an abound- 
ing source of crime ; both, because it lessens the means of subsistence, 
and lowers the individual in the general and his own esteem — it severs 
him from the instructed and educated. Instances are afforded to us in 
the lowest, most ignorant, and destitute classes in all large cities, or in 
some frontier tribes, who receive certain views and notions of civilization, 
and yet live without education and instruction. 

We have arrived at a state of things in which no individual, who 



cannot read, is actually, in most respects, excluded from the great 
sphere of civilization, which was not always the case, for instance, in 
antiquity; and whoever i^ thus excluded from the general course of ci- 
vilization, is more exposed to misery, and more liable to be drawn into 
the mares of crime, than others, who, as 1 have stated, are more firmly 
linked to society, upon whom shame, therefore, has a greater power, and 
who find it easier to gain a livelihood in an honest way. 

That there are educated people among the convicts of all countries, 
is a fact which does in no degree invalidate what I have said. I even 
allow that some have become criminals, who, without a certain know- 
ledge, would not have committed the crime which brought them to 
ruin. So have persons of a more acute sense of shame, or of a more 
generous heart than others, sometimes become criminals, while, without 
these livelier feelings, they would have given the law no opportunity of 
punishing them. 

The best preservatives against crime will always be a well trained 
mind, early application, and industrious habits, together with good ex- 
ample. There is, I believe, no person who has had an opportunity of 
various and thorough observation of criminals, who will not agree with 
me on this point, and it is easy to judge how much a sound school edu- 
cation contributes to a regular training of the youthful mind. 

That a universal school system ought never to be wanting in a pro- 
per instruction in morals and the cultivation of religious feelings, as well 
as in instruction in political virtue and morality, is as true as that no 
system of general education will produce all the good effects which it 
ought to produce, without proper care being taken for the education of 
teachers. These are truths acknowledged in those countries where 
public instruction has most prospered. But there are so many subjects 
of high interest connected with public instruction, that I should exceed 
the limits within which I must confine these observations, were I even 
but briefly to touch upon them. 

All I have stated so far is as yet but general assertion, however plau- 
sible it may appear. How are we then to test its truth ? By compar- 
ing the proportion between crime and population, since public instruc- 
tion has been established in a given country, to that which before ex- 
isted ? I have already shown the fallacy of this test in most cases ; and 
I must extend my remark. The increase of crime, or in other words, 
the increase of indictments, (because most generally, some crime has 
been committed by some one, where there is an indictment) is unfitted 
to serve as test of the increased criminality of a community, if we are 
not enabled, by a number of concurrent statements, to judge more pre- 
cisely of the case. Sometimes the police has become more vigilant, 
sometimes the laws have been made more proportionate to the crime, 
and the judges are more willing to convict; sometimes a great influx 
of destitute persons has taken place, at others public attention has been 
roused, and directed to certain crimes until then neglected ; an army 
may have been disbanded; a winter have been peculiarly severe, a fa- 
mine may have existed, money transactions may have offered new op- 
portunities, &c, in short, a number of causes, some of which are con- 
tinually exercising their influence upon mankind, may have existed, 



10 

without the least connexion with public instruction ; nay, the latter 
may have continued to exercise its beneficial influence during the whole 
time that crime was increasing, and may actually have prevented it 
from still greater increase. 

It has been stated in the British House of Commons, as I remarked 
above, that official information had been obtained, showing that public 
instruction in the state of New York, had by no means realized the 
hopes of the public, as to its influence upon the decrease of crime, and 
that in the city of New York, crime had rapidly increased. I neither 
know how true the statement was, as to its being obtained from an offi- 
cial person, nor whether the fact is true, as to the increase of crime in 
the city of New York. With regard to the state, it is not true, if de- 
pendence can be placed upon official documents. But I consider it very 
possible that crime has of late increased in the city of New York, for 
various reasons: First,' New York is fast increasing, and has to bear 
with the advantages of large cities, also their evils, among which the 
frequency of certain crimes always will be found. Secondly, the more 
New York is enlarged, the more activity of all kinds is there, and con- 
sequently, the opportunity for a number of crimes, especially as she is 
a large seaport, to which always a number of homeless adventurers will 
resort. Thirdly, its rapid intercourse with Europe has much increas- 
ed, and with it the importation of a class of criminals who, according to 
their skill and finesse, may be termed a superior class. Fourthly, there 
has been of late, such an unprecedented influx of destitute emigrants and 
actual paupers, from foreign countries, that they alone would easily ac- 
count for a great increase of vagrancy and crime. The report* by a 
committee, appointed by the city corporation, for the purpose of inquirr 
ing into this serious subject, exposes frightful abuses of the facility with 
which emigrants may, according to the present laws, settle among us, 
whether willing and able to support themselves or not. The almshouses 
have been filled with foreign paupers, and it can be easily imagined 
how many, either driven by want, or already trained in vice and crime, 
do not proceed to the almshouse, but to the penitentiaries. 

The remark of Messrs.de Beaumont anddeTocqueville,whichhasbeen 
referred to on the floor of the British Parliament, as corroborating the 
fact, that universal instruction does not tend to decrease the number of 
crimes, is made by those gentlemen, in a passage of their work, in which 
they speak of the increase of crime in the State of Connecticut — a State 
which has fostered general education with at least as much zeal as any 
other State in the Union. 

I have given some explanatory notes of this fact so startling, at first 
glance, in my translation of the valuable work of those gentlemen, and 
will only add here, that according to a letter sent me by Mr. Pilsbury, 
warden of the Connecticut State prison, convictions have diminished 
considerably of late in that State. When the two French commission- 
ers were here, the prison discipline of Connecticut had just been amend- 
ed, or, rather, entirely re-fashioned, and juries as well as judges were 
much more willing to let the law take its full and unchecked course, 
than before this reformation of the State prison, when, in fact, the pri- 
* It is dated Sept. 29, 1834. Document No. 20. 



11 

soners were in B deplorable situation. Since the commissioners, how- 
ever, were here,no essential c hange, either of tbe law or prison discipline, 
taken place, to my knowledge, and a decrease of convictions, would 
authorize us to conclude, at any rate, that crime has not gone on in- 
ing in that State. 

Whether crime in our Union, has in general, of late, increased or 
not, I am not able to say. If impressions in matters of this kind were 
worth any thing, I would say, that my impression is, that certain crimes, 
more especially murder, have either increased, or it has become more 
common with editors of newspapers to mention the details of every mur- 
der, in whatever quarter of the Union it may have been committed. 
Wherever the truth may lie, certain it is that this ready reception of 
accounts of atrocious deeds, is pernicious in a great many respects. — It 
satisfies one of the worst cravings of the human mind,and affects it in turn, 
in the same way in which physical stimulants and exciting liquors sa- 
tisfy, and, in turn, ruin the body; it has a tendency to render the read- 
er callous, and it has a positive and evil effect upon criminally dispos- 
ed persons. The power of imitation is incalculable, universal, and of- 
ten operates by imperceptible degrees. Our newspapers ought, cer- 
tainly, not to be silent on the various crimes, which are committed, for 
it is equally important that the true state of things be known, but it 
strikes me, that it would be both beneficial to the people at large, and 
becoming to the vocation of editors, were they to state but the simple 
facts of atrocious crimes, and leave their detailed accounts to those pa- 
pers which avowedly collect the statements of misdeeds, and appear 
stamped on their very face in a way, which makes every honorable read- 
er flee them. It would be certainly a wise measure if the editors of 
some of our most respectable papers would set the example, and agree 
to abstain in future from publishing detailed accounts of barbarous 
crimes. 

One. of the most active causes in producing crime in our country, is 
intemperance. An immense majority of all murders are either com- 
mitted during intoxication, or in consequence of quarrels or misery 
brought on by intemperance. And if crimes of an atrocious nature have 
increased of late, it will probably be found, by minute inquiry, that it 
is in a great measure owing to the increase of intemperance, which 
some years ago took place, and which is now showing its melancholy 
effects on the intemperate themselves, as well as on those who, in the 
mean time, have grown up with such pernicious examples before them. 

Though this Letter be not the precise place for the following remark, 
I nevertheless cannot refrain from making it, since it seems to me of 
the greatest importance that universal attention be directed to the sub- 
ject; namely, the immoderate use of opium in various shapes, chiefly 
by way of laudanum, in families, and especially with infants, without 
the advice of proper physicians. My inquiries into the subject have 
led me to the conviction, that innumerable parents create in their 
children that diseased craving for stimulants, which, with so many in- 
dividuals, ends in open and violent intemperance, and with many more, 
in a constant use of ardent spirits, not much less injurious in its conse- 
quence. The united efforts of medical gentlemen, as of all those who 



12 

are in the habit of instructing the people on important points, might 
produce a great change toward the better.* 

Intemperance, however, which on all hands is admitted as the most 
fruitful source of crime in our country — and should there be any one 
who doubts it, let him look at the convincing statements in the letters 
which I shall append to these lines — will be certainly counteracted in a 
degree by universally spread education, for the reasons already men- 
tioned; namely, because it trains and regulates the mind, connects the 
individual with stronger links to society, informs him in regard to his 
duties toward the Creator, the society he lives in, and toward himself 
and his family, and assists in producing self-respect. 

The facts which have lately appeared from the inquiries instituted 
in England as to the extent and consequences of intemperance in that 
country, the statements collected by Mr. Caspar, as to intemperance in 
Prussia, and many details given to the public by Mr. Quetelet, with 
regard to intemperance in France, show that the remark I have just 
made is also applicable to those countries. 

But is there no test, then, by which we may ascertain whether uni- 
versal education tends to prevent crime, or whether ignorance promotes 
it? It seems to me that there is a means by which we may solve this 
question to the satisfaction of every fair inquirer, namely, by ascertain- 
ing the degree of education which every convict has obtained. If we 
should find, that in a country in which few individuals grow up without 
some school instruction, an immense majority of convicts are men who 
have not received a fair school education, if thus ignorance almost 
always accompanies crime, and if, at the same time, it is easy to account 
for a connexion between the two, on general and simple grounds, drawn 
from the nature of our mind and of human society in general, I think 
we are authorized to conclude that there actually does exist a neces- 
sary connexion between the two, and that by diffusing knowledge of a 
moral and scientific character, we may hope for a decrease of. crime, 
and be assured that though crime may in reality or apparently have 
increased for some reason, it would have increased still more without 
general education. 

The greatest circumspection, indeed, is necessary, in drawing con- 
clusions from statistical statements. Many opinions, apparently founded 
in reality, have currently been believed for many years, and, in the 
end, been found to be erroneous. But if, as I have stated, repeated 
facts agree with the conclusions at which we would arrive in the most 
cautious way of reasoning by analogy, and on principles which are al- 
ways considered to hold — and if, in particular, our conclusions are cor- 
roborated by those individuals, who, before all others, have a sound and 
practical knowledge of criminals, it would seem that we may adopt the 
result, thus arrived at, as truth. There is no warden or superintendent 
of any penitentiary of note, with which I am acquainted, who does not 
consider want of education, and ignorance, as some of the most active 
agents in producing crime ; and if there be any subject connected with 
education, or any affairs of human society, respecting which the know- 

* Some more remarks on the same subject may be found in a work which I lately 
edited: Letters to a Gentleman in Germany: Philadelphia 1834, on page 324 and sequ. 



13 

ledge of practical men is more indispensable, or reasoning on which, 

without ample knowledge of facts, is more gratuitous, that subject is 

prison discipline, and the true character of convicts. But, as will be 

from the follow iiilc letters, there is but OHO opinion among these 

tlemen. 

When I tir-t saw the statements to which I have alluded at the be- 
ginning of this letter, I directed a series of queries to the wardens of our 
Htorf prominent penitentiaries, and received from nearly all of them the 
readied answers, not, indeed, always, on all of my questions. This 
would have taken, in some cases, too much time, yet the statements 
with which the gentlemen favored me are quite sufficient to prove, 
that not only education, but instruction, even in the most elementary 
knowledge, is very deticient in most convicts. 

Some of my queries tended to ascertain other facts, and some of the 
statements of those gentlemen touch upon statistics of the highest inte- 
rest, besides the points in question, so that I have finally concluded to 
give their whole letters, of which I am convinced every one will approve. 
The more statistics we can possibly collect respecting crimes and crimi- 
nals the causes of the first, and the social stations of the latter, the bet- 
ter it is. 

The Rev. Mr. Dwight, to whom I directed a similar series of inqui- 
ries, with regard to the Massachusetts State Prison in Charlestown, re- 
ceived my letter when setting out for a journey, but wrote me, — "This 
report (the ninth of the Boston Prison Discipline Society) contains 
much information touching the point proposed in your letter, and ena- 
bles me more effectually to contribute to the object of your inquiry than 
any other document in my possession, or that I can at present obtain," 
&c. This report has not yet reached me, and 1 am, therefore, obliged 
to refer to it, without offering any extracts.* From another quarter, I 
received no answer. 

As Mr. Wood, the warden of our Eastern Penitentiary, has given the 
answer on a number of my queries, in his last report on the penitentiary 
under his charge, to the Board of Inspectors, I shall give an extract 
from that quarter. 

As to the three other letters, I repeat, they are too valuable not to 
be given without curtailment. They prove once more the facts, that — 

1. Deficient education, early loss of parents, and consequent neglect, 
are some of the most fruitful sources of crime. 

2. That iew convicts have ever learned a regular trade, and, if they 
were bound to any apprenticeship, they have abandoned it, before the 
time had lawfully expired. 

3. That school education is, with most convicts, very deficient, or en- 
tirely wanting. 

4. That intemperance, very often the consequence of loose education, 
is a most appalling source of crime. 

5. That by preventing intemperance, and by promoting education, 
we are authorized to believe that we shall prevent crime, in a consider- 
able degree. 

• Since the above was written, I have received the Ninth Report of the Boston Pri- 
son Society, but it contains little referring particularly to the matter before us. 



14 

The following documents would serve yet for a variety of important 
reflections, e. g. the paramount importance of instructing the convict 
in some trade, and either the folly or great mistake of some who are de- 
sirous to oppose this most necessary part of all prison discipline ; and the 
interesting communication of the Rev. Mr. Smith, chaplain of Auburn 
State Prison, would furnish the material for some comparisons of a very 
instructive nature, with some statements in Mr. Guerry's Essai sur la 
Statistique Morale de la France; Paris, 1833 — a work of great merit ; 
but I must necessarily abstain from it, not to deviate from the nature of 
this letter. 

I shall add to Mr. Wiltse's letter, a statement, which he kindly com- 
municated to me about a year ago, and which I appended to my intro- 
duction to a Constitution and Plan of Education for Girard College 
for Orphans, as showing how many convicts have lost their parents in 
their early years. 

Before I conclude these remarks, I will only observe as an explanation 
of the following, that if it is stated of a convict, that he reads and writes, 
but has no common good school education, his acquirements often 
amount to little more than the knowledge of spelling, or the skill of 
making out the sound of the words, without the capability of finding 
out the sense of a phrase — and the skill to write his name. With regard 
to our inquiry, all below a common English school education, ought to be 
classed together. 

It would have been desirable to know what number of foreigners are 
among the various classes, enumerated in the following statements, but 
this information is not essential as to our inquiry, as convicts, who are na- 
tives of foreign countries, belong nearly without an exception, to the least 
educated of the whole number. From very interesting statements in the 
statistical appendix to the work of Messrs. Beaumont and Tocqueville,the 
proportions of foreigners among convicts in America, to natives, will be 
found, and it is therefore easy to ascertain how many uneducated Ame- 
ricans still remain among the number of convicts. 

I am, 

Right Rev. Sir, 

Your obedient and respectful servant, 

FRANCIS LIEBER. 
Philadelphia, November, 1834. 



OBSERVATIONS 

BY DR. JULIUS. 



Having had the privilege, during my stay in the city of Philadelphia, 
to assist at a meeting of the members of the Society for Alleviating the 
ries of Public Prisons, where the preceding Letter of Dr. Lieber 
on the Relation between Education and Crime, was read, I was re- 
quested to state what I thought to be the result of the school system of 
Prussia, in reference to this interesting question. I shall refer, therefore, 
as shortly as possible, the few conclusions I have thought my- 
self competent to deduce from an uninterrupted observation of the 
number of crimes, as well as of the state of education in most of the 
countries of Europe and America, during ten years, without claiming 
for what I have to say, a greater authority than the observations of 
a single individual, spending the largest part of his time in an inland 
continental capital, may entitle him. 

The well known — and, since Mr. Cousin published his interesting 
Report — far-famed Prussian system of National Education, went pro- 
perly into practice in the year 1819, and has three fundamental prin- 
ciples and supporting pillars. 

First, the erection of seminaries or schools for teachers in the elemen- 
tary schools, of which Prussia, with a population equal to that of the 
United States, has now forty-three, of the Protestant and Catholic de- 
nominations, furnishing annually from eight to nine hundred teachers, 
well informed and trained during three years, for their future avoca- 
tion. 

Secondly, the legal obligation of parents, guardians, &c. to send chil- 
dren under their care, if they are not instructed by qualified teachers* 
at home, or in authorized private schools, to the public schools, from the 
first day of their seventh to the last day of their fourteenth year. 

Thirdly, the foundation of the whole system on a religious and moral 
basis, so that the first or the two first hours of each day are devoted en- 
tirely to a regular course of religious instruction, teaching, besides the 
reading of the scriptures, (for the Catholics, histories taken from the 
Bible,) all the duties of man towards his Creator, the constituted autho- 
rities, and his fellow creatures, as they are inculcated by the gospel. 

These general regulations on education have been gradually aug- 
mented and strengthened by the Prussian Minister of Public Instruction, 
with a particular care for the reformation of juvenile offenders. In 
this way, since the year 1820, twenty-eight institutions for juvenile de- 
linquents, or neglected children, none of them larger than for sixty boys 

• The legal qualification of a teacher consists in his having 1 passed different exami- 
nations, the last by the Consistory Court of the province where he intends to settle. 



74 


72 


94 


517 


544 


638 


591 


616 


732 


54 


60 


56 


410 


357 


431 


L524 


1:21167 


1: 17460 



16 

or girls, have been established and supported by voluntary subscriptions, 
in different parts of the kingdom, under the especial protection of the 
above-mentioned minister. Since 1828, the board of the same minister 
has collected from all the tribunals and courts of law in the kingdom, 
regular returns of all the indictments brought before them, against boys 
or girls, not older than seventeen years. The numbers furnished by 
these official returns, and the proportion of this kind of indictments in 
each year, to the general population of the monarchy, are the follow- 
ing: 

Juvenile Indictments. 1828 1829 1830 1831 

Until 11 years accomplished 81 

From 11 to 17 years 671 

Whole number of committed children 752 
Uninstructed children 80 

Children not yet having taken the com- 
munion* 469 
Proportion to the whole population 1: 16924 1: 21524 

The first fact resulting from this table is, that under the Prussian school 
system, a simultaneous increase of the population of three per cent, 
(from 12,700,000 to 13,000,000) and a decrease of indictments against 
children, of three per cent, has taken place. This cheering fact, con- 
nected with the remarkable circumstance, that the indictments against 
children below eleven years, who had enjoyed the blessings of the sys- 
tem only during four years, have increased, (from 81 to 94) when a 
large decrease of the indictments against children of more than eleven 
years, (from 671 to 638) took place, which were able to reap the full 
benefit of a religious and moral education, seems to prove undeniably 
that the effects of the system have been good and beneficial. 

Another remarkable fact resulting from these Prussian returns, is, 
that the smallest numbers of juvenile delinquencies occurred in the least 
instructed entirely agricultural provinces of Pomerania and Posen, (the 
first Protestant, the last Catholic,) and the largest numbers in the best 
instructed but also most industrious and manufacturing provinces, those 
of Saxony and the Rhenish countries, whose commercial and manufac- 
turing districts surpass even the capital in this kind of transgressions. 

Trying to elucidate the circumstance just mentioned, I must state 
that the crimes for which the children were committed in those parts 
of the kingdom, where their number was small, have been generally 
of a more heinious character (arson, &c.) than in the provinces with 
more indictments, but principally for fraud or larceny. Similar ob- 
servations relating to the whole number of criminals, and to the kind of 
crime, can be made in the Austrian monarchy, which contains very 
heterogeneous and widely different masses of population. 

The order in which the proportion of the number of every kind of 
indictments to the population, has increased during the five years of 1824, 

* In Germany, the first communion, called the confirmation, as well among the Pro- 
testants as with the Catholics, is held as necessary for every adult person as baptism, 
to allow him to join in any act celebrated by the Church, as marriage, taking the Lord's 
Supper, &c. 



17 

5, \<26, 1827 and 1828, was in seven provinces of Austria, the fol- 
lowing: — 

Provinces. Population. Indictments to Inhabitants. 

Moravia and Silesia, German and Sclavonian, 1 to 1707 

tria Proper, German, 1 to 167G 

Bohemia, Sclavonian and German, 1 to 1428 

Galii Polish, 1 to 1382 

Interior Austria, German, Sclavonian & Italian, 1 to 009 

Tyrol and Vorarlberg, German and Italian, 1 to 322 

Dalmatia, Sclavonian, 1 to 138 

The decreasing proportion of children visiting the schools, among one 
thousand able to attend, was in the same provinces in the years 1824, 
1885, and 1828, the following:— 

Provinces. From 1000 Children went to School. 

Austria Proper, . . 948 

Tyrol and Vorarlberg, . . 945 

Moravia and Silesia. . . 919 

Bohemia, . 906 

Dalmatia, . . 649 

Interior Austria, . . 443 

Galicia, • . . 115 

In comparing Jhese two tables, I find the increase of crime with a de- 
crease of education nearly agreeing in Austria proper, in Moravia, Sile- 
sia, Bohemia, in Interior Austria, and even in Dalmatia, where the num- 
bers are too small to furnish a fair and accurate judgment. But on the 
reverse, the Tyrolese, one of the noblest and bravest races of the world, 
sending nineteen-twentieths of their children to school, give more occu- 
pation to Austrian judges, than all the other provinces of the empire, 
except Dalmatia — the common asylum of fugitives from lawless Tur- 
key, and Galicia, whose Polish inhabitants, shunning, like their bre- 
thren in Prussia, popular instruction, send only the ninth part of their 
children to school, and furnish at the same time by far less criminals than 
Interior Austria, Tyrol or Dalmatia.* 

In relating these facts, which are probably much less contradictory 
than we might judge at first glance, I cannot help saying, after having 
stated my belief, that besides the influence of instruction there are 
many more elements which contribute to the increase or decrease of 
crime, (one of the principal of which is the pursuit in life) that more 
than any thing seems to depend upon the manner of elementary instruc- 
tion, whether it be a mere mechanical one in reading, writing, arith- 
metic, and some geographical and historical knowledge, confining the 
highest information to the reading of the scriptures, and to committing 
biblical verses to memory, or whether it is one resting on a religious 
and moral foundation, where all other knowledge imparted to the child, 
finds its test and its confirmation. 

This opinion, though it diminishes in value the test of the information 

* The great amount of crime in Tyrol, may be, perhaps, accounted for, by the cha- 
racter of the Tyrolese, who, like most mountaineers, prefer, in their spirit of indepen- 
dence, to revenge a wrong, rather than to go to law, and by the circumstance, that a 
very great number of the male population of Tyrol annually travel into foreign coun- 
tries as pedlars, with goods manufactured at home.— -Liedeu. 

5 



18 

of convicts, which ought to be compared with what we have not, an 
accurate knowledge how many of the present adult population of any 
country in the world have been instructed or educated, is not new. It 
has been maintained and even promulgated, in all parts of the world, 
by candid and benevolent statesmen and philanthropists. 

In this country, we find Governor Wolcott saying as early as in 1826, 
in his message to the legislature of Massachusetts: "As high mental 
attainments afford no adequate security against moral debasement, it 
appears to be indispensably necessary that we should unite with our 
neighbours, and with all virtuous men of the present age, in maintain- 
ing our share in the great conflict which is prosecuting, of virtue against 
vice."* 

Even eight years earlier, John Falk, the same who founded in 1813, 
the first House of Reform for juvenile offenders, said in a petition to the 
Chambers of the Grand Duchy of Weimar: "Of what use or advan- 
tage to the commonwealth are rogues that know how to read, to write 
or to cypher? They are only the more dangerous. The acquirements 
mechanically imparted to such men, can serve only as so many master 
keys put into their hands to break into the sanctuary of humanity." 

To close these remarks by a similar statement from Great Britain, 
the connecting link between the experience of the eastern and of the 
western continent, I subjoin the following passage of "an eminent me- 
dical writer: 

"There is no one characteristic of the present age more remarkable 
than its inclination to undervalue all moral education. The wonders 
which have been effected by the mechanical inventions of Watt, Ark- 
wright, (Fulton,) &c, seem almost to have overturned the common 
sense of the times, and every power is stretched to its utmost, to render 
the rising generation not a moral, but a mechanical race. This is cer- 
tainly exactly the reverse of what ought to take place, inasmuch as the 
happiness of men depends far more upon the proper control of their in- 
ternal feelings, than their external circumstances; far more upon a 
mind 'void of offence' than upon the highest intellectual acquirements. 
Neither can there be a greater mistake than the supposition, that know- 
ledge is always in itself beneficial. It is indeed a tremendous engine of 
good or evil. With him whose mind is directed aright, it is an instru- 
ment of advantage to himself and to the world ; but with him whose mo- 
ral feelings are not decidedly virtuous, it is but an additional and terri- 
ble weapon of ill."t 

N. H. JULIUS. 

Philadelphia, 20th January, 1 S 5. 

* First Report of the Managers of the Society for the Improvement of Prison Disci- 
pline. Boston, Second Edition, page 83. 

f London Medical Repository.— New Series. Vol. iii. p. 337. 



APPENDIX. 



Extract of the Warden's Report, to the Board of Inspectors of the 
Eastern Penitentiary, (in Pennsylvania,) in 1834.* 

"In my last annual report, I alluded to the want of common school learn- 
ing, which prevailed so generally among convicts. On a more minute exa- 
mination of this subject, I find that of the whole number received into this 
penitentiary, from the opening, viz: two hundred and nineteen, that forty- 
two could neither read nor write, fifty-nine could read, but not write, and 
one hundred and eighteen could read and write: of the latter class, one had 
been educated at a university, one had a good English education, and is a 
tolerable Latin and French scholar, one understands English, Dutch and 
Hebrew ; besides these, there are not more than seven who have had a good 
education, and not more than two others who could read and write tolera- 
bly, leaving ninety-eight who could read or write indifferently, many of 
these, as well as most of those who could read only, were not able to read a 
sentence without spelling many of the words. It is not only in their ele- 
mentary education that these have been neglected in their youth, but also 
in another respect, namely, their ignorance of trades and occupations to qua- 
lify them for useful citizens. On an investigation of this point, I find that out 
of the whole number (219) only thirty were regularly bound and served 
out their apprenticeship, sixteen remained during their minority with their 
parents, thirty-eight were apprenticed, but left their masters under various 
pretences, most of them ran away, and gave as a reason, the severity with 
which they were treated; the want of food, clothing, &c. ; two of them de- 
clare that their masters first taught them to steal; eight were slaves until 
twenty-one or twenty-eight years of age, and one hundred and twenty-one 
never were apprenticed, but were either hired by their friends or them- 
selves, and lived in this unsettled way during their minority. 

"There are among mankind some who have been liberally educated, and 
carefully superintended during their youth, who nevertheless become aban- 
doned, and we see others without these advantages, rise to the first stations 
in society, yet the disproportion is great. I therefore believe, that had the 
two hundred and nineteen convicts above mentioned received a suitable edu- 
cation, both moral and physical, and been placed with good masters until 
twenty-one years of age to learn some practical business, where they would 
be taught industry, economy, and morality, instead of spending their youth 
as they have, that few of them would ever have been the inmates of a prison. 
All philanthropists agree, that the best mode of preventing crime, is proper- 
ly to educate youth." 

• By Samuel R. Wood, Esq. 



20 



II. 

Letter of Mr. JViltse, Jlgent of Sing-Sing State Prison. 

State Prison, ) 

Mount Pleasant, Aug. 27, 1834. \ 

My Dear Sir , 

In reply to your favor of 22d inst., I hand you enclosed such state- 
ments as I have been able to collect. 

Whatever may be the fact in other countries, there can be but little doubt 
but education, and early application to some kind of business, v/ould have 
a powerful tendency to decrease crime. From my long intimacy with cri- 
minals, I have found that a large majority of convictions may be traced to 
the formation of bad habits in early life, from a total neglect on the part of 
their parents, or guardians, in giving them education, and confining their 
attention to some regular, systematic business. 

I am, very respectfully, 

Yours, 

ROB. WILTSE. 

To Dr. F. Lieber. 

N. B. — You will observe that but 50 out of 842, have received any thing 
like an education. 

R. W. 

There are at present 842 prisoners. 
170 prisoners cannot read nor write. 

have never been at school of any kind. 

know how to read, but not to write. 

know how to read and write, but a large proportion of this 

number very imperfectly, 
received a good common English education, 
went through a college. 
485 have been habitual drunkards; about one-third of the above number 
actually committed their respective crimes when intoxicated. 

The "other queries about the apprenticeships I cannot answer correctly, 
without going to each man in the prison; at present, my time will not permit 
me to do it. 

R. W. 

Addition from page 149 of Ji Constitution and Plan of Education 

for Girard College for Orphans, Philadelphia, 1834. 

"As it is a question of great interest to the criminalist and moralist, to 
know how many convicts have lost their parents at an early age, I begged 
Mr. Wiltse, the agent of the Sing-Sing Penitentiary, to answer certain 
queries, which he promptly did, with that kindness with which he has al- 
ways afforded me information respecting the state prison under his super- 
intendence. There are about 800 convicts in Sing-Sing. Some few of them 



34 


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21 

were unable to say when they had lost their parents; of whom, therefore, 
many must be supposed to have lost them early; of the others, 
lost their parents before they were five years old: 

" after they were five years old, and before they were 

fourteen years old: 
41 « after they were fourteen years old, and before they 

were eighteen years old. 

161 lost their parents before they had arrived at their eighteenth year, 
which makes one-fifth of all the prisoners. If we add to them, those who 
were unable to give an account of themselves, we may say that nearly one- 
fourth of all convicts lost their parents before they were eighteen years old. 
Of these, probably the greater part, say three-quarters, therefore nearly 
one-fifth of the whole number, fell into vice in consequence of their forlorn 
situation — of having become orphans at an early age." 



III. 

Letter of Rev, Mr. Smith, Chaplain of Auburn State Prison. 

State Prison, 



.i 



Auburn, September 12, 1834. 
Dear Sir, 

The agent and keeper has just received, through Governor Marcy, your 
communication, making certain inquiries respecting the former character of 
the convicts in this prison, as it regards their education, habits, &c; and as 
my sphere of duties has led me to be more familiar than he is with the sub- 
ject, he requests me to furnish the answer, which I most cheerfully do. 

Some of the questions, however, I cannot answer at all, and few, if any, 
of the others, in precisely the form in ivhich they are proposed, without in- 
terrogating, separately, six or seven hundred convicts, which, with my li- 
mited opportunities of intercourse with them, would necessarily delay this 
reply for months. 

I must therefore beg you to accept, as the best reply which I can at pre- 
sent give to your interrogatories, the following statements, (taken from 
minutes which I have at hand) from which you will, I hope, be able to glean 
the substance of the information sought, on most of the points of inquiry. 
The statements which follow relate to the 670 convicts (twenty-eight of 
whom are females) in prison on the first ult. 



22 



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Education — Five Classes. 


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Of Collegiate Education, 




1 


Of Academical do. 


















3 












5 






8 


Of Common do. 


1 


6 


7 


1 


4 


4 


4 


2 


41 


21 


24 


3 


1 


1 


70 


13 


1 


204 


Of Very poor do. 


3 


4 


12 


2 


4 


4 


3 


4 


25 


23 


33 


1 


1 


1 


105 


.37 


5 


267 


Without any do. 




4 


12 


8 


4 


4 


6 


6 


3 


8 


26 


1 




1 


66 


35 


4 


188 


Total, 


4 


14 


31 


11 


12 


12 


13 


12 


74 


52 


83 


5 


2 


3 


247 


85 


10 


670 



CRIMES. 



Habits — in respect to the use of 
Spirituous Liquors. 


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63 

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Excessively Intemperate, 
Moderately Intemperate, 

Intemperate, 
Temperate Drinkers, . 
Total Abstinents, 

Total, 


3 
1 

4 

4 


9 
5 

14 
14 


258 
245 

503 

159 

8 

670 



Under the influence of spirituous liquors at the time of committing 

their crimes 
Had intemperate parents 
Lost or left parents before 21 years of age 

do do 17 do 

do do 14 do 

do do 10 do 

Had been in Sabbath school previous to conviction 
Had been habitual daily readers of the Bible 
Had committed the Decalogue to memory 
Had been strict observers of the Sabbath 
Married .... 
Lost wives by death, previous to conviction 
Left wives previous to conviction 



402 

257 

397 

262 

121 

58 

19 

25 

74 

11 

352 

31 

86 

— 117 



Living with wives when arrested 



23S 



23 

Unmarried . . . .318 

Lost or left wives previous to conviction . 117 

Living without wives when arrested . . 435 

Children of the married convicts . . 953 

REMARKS. 

Under the head u Education," my fifth class answers to your first— "Do 
know neither to write nor to read." It qpferace9 not those only who did 
not know the alphabet, but all those who could not read in the New Testa- 
ment, when they came to prison. 

My fourth class answers, with little variation, to your second — 4< Know 
how to read, but not to write." Some of them could write very poorly, 
but few of them more than their own names. 

JVIy third class embraces some of each of your third, fourth and fifth — 
(" Know to read and write" — " Know to read, write, and cast accounts" — 
"Received a good common English education") — but consists chiefly of your 
fourth. There are very few in it who can be said to have "received a good 
common English education." 

The other classes are sufficiently explained by the terms used. 

Regretting, extremely, that I am unable to answer your inquiries more 
definitely, 

I am, my dear Sir, 

Most respectfully your's, 

B. C. SMITH, 
Chaplain of Auburn State Prison. 

Dr. Francis Lieber. 



IV. 

Letter of Mr. Pilsbury, Warden of Connecticut State Prison. 

State Prison, > 

Wethersfield, Sept. 23, 1834-5 
Dear Sir, 

Yours of the 12th inst. came duly to hand, and is cheerfully replied to as 
soon as answers to your questions could be obtained. If the following state- 
ments should somewhat more than cover the ground embraced in your in- 
quiries, I doubt not, that your interest in the subject, will cause you to give 
them a welcome reception. 

The whole number of convicts in the Connecticut State Prison is 180. 
No convict here has ever received either a college, or classical education; 
nor has any one of such education ever been an inmate of this prison. The 
Chaplain, who, from 1827 to 1830, was acquainted with nearly 1000 con- 
victs, in the Mount Pleasant State prison, at Sing Sing, N. Y., and with 
many other convicts in the prisons in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Auburn, 
has never known a liberally educated convict in prison. 

The proportion of 8 in 100 of convicts when they came to prison, could 
read, write and cypher. 

The proportion of 4G in 100 " could read and write. 

" 32 in 100 tC could read only. 

M 22 in 100 u could neither read nor write. 

" 72 in 100 " never learnt any trade. 

24 in 100 " began to learn, or learned trades 

which they did not follow. 
4 in 100 " have followed regular trades. 



24 

The proportion of 44 in 100 of convicts, committed their crimes while un- 
der excitement, caused by the use of ardent spirits. 
There is no convict here who, before his conviction, could read and write, 
and who was of temperate habits, and followed a regular trade. 

Of the convicts here, who could read and write, and were temperate, there 
are 2 in 100 

Of those who could read, write, and followed a trade, there are 4 in 100 
" who are owners of real estate, 6 in 100 

" who are owners of«ot estate, and were temperate, 2 in 100 
" who are owners of^real estate, and unmarried, 

** who have never been married, 64 in 100 

" who were married, and followed a trade, 4 in 100 

" who were married, followed a trade, and were temperate, 
" who acknowledged themselves to have been habitual 

drunkards, 75 in 100 

*« not natives of Connecticut, 40 in 100 

" deprived of their parents, before thej were 10 years 

old, 32 in 100 

" deprived of their parents, before they were 15 years 

old, 15 in 100 

" those who are colored are *25 in 100 

The maximum inclination to crime appears to be at the age of 25. 
From 1790 to 1834, there were 1113 instances in which individuals were 
sentenced to the State prison for the commission of crime. These crimes 
may be ranged under the three following heads in these proportions, viz: 
Violence, 190. Theft, 71 6. Fraud, 207. 

Upon an average, each criminal cost the State for his apprehension and 
conviction, $75, and the average term of time that each was sentenced to 
remain in confinement, (abating 45 sentences for life,) has been 3 years. 

Since the prison has been established in this place, some seven or eight 
years ago, the number of convicts has considerably increased, and hence, 
the French commissioners, and English gentlemen may have naturally in- 
ferred, that there must have been an increase of crime in equal proportion. 
But the truth of this matter seems to lie here. As soon as the new prison 
was built, the criminal code was revised, and alterations made so as to pu- 
nish a larger number of offences with confinement in the State Prison. Be- 
sides, because the discipline of the prison was thought to have a strong ten- 
dency to reform those, who came under its influence, and as such economy 
was used, as to make the labor of the convicts more than meet the expenses 
of the whole establishment, the courts in the different counties, were more 
than ever before inclined to sentence individuals to the State prison 
for the same offences. For some time past there has been a very manifest 
decrease in this State in the instances both of crime and convictions. Ever 
since last January, there has been a diminution of at least 20 in the number 
of convicts. 

Viewing with high satisfaction the deep interest which you evince in that 
department, where my labors have for many years centered, 
I am Sir, 

with sentiments of sincere regard, yours, &c. 

A. PILSBURY, 
Warden of Connecticut State PrisoD. 
To Dr. F. Lieber, ) pr. G. Barrett. 

Philad. S 

* In the State blacks are to the whites as 3 to 100. 



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